Haiku

   

These are the skies in my neighborhood this morning.  We've had 3 days of significant rainfall (significant by Arizona standards!)  We needed it to relieve the drought and low rainfall totals.  I am hopeful that if we can get another shower or two over the next month we may have a beautiful wildflower season this year. 

Here's a haiku I composed on the topic...

Storm clouds sob then weep
Rare gift to desert's hid seed
Blooms will rise to breathe.

 

These red poppies were a demonstration piece done for my painting students, in neocolor II pastels.  We may get gold poppies soon, but if you want these red varieties, you have to visit the nursery.  ;) 

Long time no blog!

Well, gee... what can I say?

 Holidays...busy... out of state visitors... blah blah blah. 

Anyway... here I am again. 

We had a special Christmas since all of our boys were home, together for the first time in a long time.  Aside from the majority of the group having nasty colds, it was lovely. 

Today, however, was not all lovely... today was the dreaded day we took 'baby boy' to the airport to fly across the country back to College, and he has no scheduled plans to return home this coming summer.  So it was a tough and teary farewell this time. 

To distract myself from a too quiet house I went to the DBG.  It was cold and breezy but sunny.  I particularly kept my eye out for my favorite color... yellow.  This was prompted by today's 'Joy Dare' (Ann Voskamp's challenge to record 3 blessings, gifts or 'joys' each day. here (click on 'Take Joy Dare'))  Today's prompt was '3 yellow gifts of fresh mercy!'  After choosing 3 to share on facebook I decided to look for more.  I needed to focus on these little blessings on a day when my heart could easily have chosen to be full of self-pity or sadness.  It was beautiful at the garden.  Here are some of my photos... not everything was golden hued, but all were warm fuzzy experiences!  ;)  

I even slowed down and did a little 'plein air' watercolor sketch on one of the patios they've recently opened to the public and which has some lovely little place to sit and enjoy the surroundings.  

Thank you for your patience during my absence, and may 2013 be a year where many golden blessings are noted in your life.  

Katie 

Recent project and a give away (not mine! ha ha!)

Here's a photo of a project I did over the weekend.

It's for a family (with 2 bio children) who are adopting 3 siblings that they've been foster parenting.

The mom found this idea online.  Most often these thumbprint 'guestbook' trees are used for weddings.  Guests stamp their thumbprint onto the branches as a sign of their attendance to the happy occasion.  In the case of this 'family tree', it will be the all the guests, family and friends at the adoption celebration and our fingerprints will represent all the extended family who love and support them.  Sunday is national adoption day, and this is the day their adoption becomes final.  Cool, huh? Anyway, the mom is a friend and she asked if I'd paint them a tree for the occasion this is what I came up with after she showed me some she liked.  I included the little 'kiddie' birds to represent the children and mom and dad bird are in the heart of the tree.  ;)

Can't wait to see it with it's leaves soon. Some appropriate calligraphy wording will be added at the bottom too. Then it will matted and framed.

Thanks for stopping in and here's the promised give away link!  Hurry, winner will be drawn tomorrow!  We are gluten intolerant around our house and I just happened upon this today.  You can win all kinds of goodies to make some wonderful gluten free holiday treats.  Hope others will enter too!

 http://www.thedailydietribe.com/2012/11/gluten-free-vegan-refined-sugar-free.html

Have a lovely day.

Thankful for Blessings ~ November

A small pastel (Neocolor II) done as a gift for my little sister. 

pumpkins with book ~ finis

Finished the watercolor version this afternoon. 

Painting October

I enjoyed my pastel still life of pumpkins so much I decided to do a similar one in watercolor.  I've just begun it tonight...

This is all I've got so far.  The process is different, I'm laying the color directly on the page (the Neocolor IIs) then wetting it and blending with the brush.  They tend to dry so much lighter than my other wc paints, so I thought I'd try this method to get richer colors.  So far, not bad. 

Happy Fall. 
Happy October... my favorite month.  

Autumn being my favorite season. 

Potpourri (i.e. a lame title when you can't think of something better)

Life is busy... duh.  Lots of variety and unrelated busy-ness eats up my time, and I sometimes just forget I have a blog.

We went camping last month.  Hallelujah!  Though it involved a bit of rain, a dog bite, and a final night of hearing a pack of wolves close by (following elk, most likely, but we were the only people in the campground) which prompted dear hubby and dear son staying up all night by the fire to be on the safe side, it was SO worth it!  (How is that for a run on sentence?) Beautiful late summer weather, pristine air, aspens just beginning to glow gold, wind in the pines, and a little lake practically all to ourselves (see photo above)!  It was just too short.  Here are a couple quick sketches done while on the trip...

Done on the drive to camp of the passing scenery (above).

And this one of a Great Blue Heron, which circled slowly over the lake then landed in a huge pine.

Back at home, drawing and painting classes have been chugging along, here are a couple photos of demonstrations I did step by step which the students emulated...

(Neocolor II wax pastels on black pastel paper of a fall still life.)

Chair by Open Window.  Lesson on watercolor techniques and use of masking to retain bright whites.  This exercise can be found in 'Watercolor Workshop' a DK book.  Students were pleased with their final paintings, which was their first painting of a complete composition, start to finish.  We use the Neocolors for watercolor as well, since they are water soluble, the colors aren't quite as fresh as professional tube watercolors, but work well for classes.  Easy portability and can be used in multiple ways.

Here is a photo of the students' just turned in homework assignments...

So there is a potpourri update of Sept. & Oct. happenings.
Already thinking about the holidays and all that needs to be done in preparation for them.